Revenue, that’s the name of the game in 2017. And has been for a long time.

We’ve heard a lot this year about AI, machine learning, and the like. But regardless of what lens you approach the revenue problem, there’s one constant. Success comes down to the right people, processes, and technologies. Combining these three elements in today’s data-abundant world is the key to success. But this continues to be a pervasive challenge for B2B go-to-market teams. Especially in the current buzz-heavy, ‘jump on the next trend’ world that we live in.

Yet, bridging the customer-brand relationship isn’t so simple.

Being able to filter through the deluge of noise can help you focus on the right trends. Looking out for technologies, strategies, and organizational thinking that helps your company excel.

To help answer this question, we reached out to thought leaders in the B2B space. These are marketing and sales leaders with a proven track record of driving scalable growth. In this post, we highlight some of the top findings we heard from them. Check out the list and learn about the key trends you should keep top of mind this year.

B2B marketing and sales predictions from experts

“In 2017, the industry will start to realize that ABM isn’t a technology category, it’s a business strategy. To succeed in B2B markets, you must embrace this. Move the focus from leads to accounts, and cover the fundamentals of lead-to-account matching and analytics/metrics. Only then can you go on to other parts of ABM, like orchestrating highly relevant plays leveraging multiple channels across multiple departments. Make this shift and your chances of success skyrocket.”

“Mastering the full customer journey is the clear mission to maximize revenue and profitability. Lead generation and a ‘net-new’ effort alone won’t cut it. Marketing is doubling down on smarter top-funnel strategies to identify and engage the right pros at the right companies. Working with sales, marketing’s focus is also extending beyond MQLs shifting resources down funnel on revenue generation, including post-sell advocacy, cross-sell and upsell.”

“When marketing starts planning, optimizing, and measuring, all marketing for revenue we’ll see a huge shift in not only focus, but also additional business growth and improved alignment culture. There will always be an art to marketing, but gone are the days of leads and MQLs as goals — sales deserves better and so do the organizations we serve.”